Dear Fellow Citizens:

I shall commence with a disclaimer: I feel cranky. And, since this sentiment has slowly escalated over the past several weeks to the crankiest level of cranky yet, a level now high enough to instigate a session before the keyboard of my laptop, I forewarn you of an imminent perch upon a soapbox.

Let me launch my tirade by stating that I am sick of and sickened by the spate of media pundits in positions arrayed across the political spectrum who engage in emotional rants carefully constructed with a narrow selection of facts and cleverly presented half-truths--not to overlook the addition of an out-and-out lie should any opportune moment arise--and then varnished with histrionics and demonizations of key opposition players, especially when said broadcast conversation is rationalized with "I'm an entertainer." I am totally appalled, however, with listeners who mindlessly accept what they hear from these talker-entertainers as the full truth and the only way to proceed. Religious people may be accused of having "blind faith" and acting in "blind obedience," but I would submit that a much greater danger exists from too many citizens practicing "blind faith" and "blind obedience" in the realm of politics and government. Just because someone says something is so doesn't make something so, even if that someone is a person we like, trust, or share common beliefs with. Never should we underestimate the impact of checking out the facts or the perspectives of multiple sources, including the opposition's; such efforts exponentially increase our own knowledge base and powerfully enhance our ability to focus and fine tune our own beliefs preliminary to pursuing a more authentic course of action.

Another current irritant for me is the glut of "Nazis" and "dictators" in our political system. Just because we don't like someone and/or we disgree with someone's political point of view does not necessarily make him/her another Hitler, Stalin, or Mao, nor does it necessarily make him/her a Nazi, a facist, a communist, or a dictator. Neither Bush nor Obama are dictators nor is either one really at all similar to Hitler in leadership style or philosophy. Name calling bridges nothing between differing points of view; it is virtually useless to any constructive endeavor.

And one final harangue before I close is directed to those who proclaim, "I want my America back." Get real! Beyond your personal conception of what America was or is, there is no "my America"; there is only "our America." Not even any of our founding fathers got "his America," the one perfectly envisioned in his mind--which is probably to their credit and our benefit, although I also believe that some of their ideas that didn't make it into the Constitution and our plan of government then are things you or I might still wish had been instituted and implemented. I also harbor some impatient annoyance toward one demonstrator within range of a TV microphone who avowed that she wanted her children to grow up in the same America she grew up in. Not going to happen. Impossible, in fact, if only because influences of continued advances in technology and globalization--which, of course, are not nearly all the reasons at all. And no matter what period of time in US history any of us might select as being golden, we should be mindful that for certain other Americans that same period of time represents a difficult period of time, one tarnished by economic, social, or political adversity.

Americans--our individual narratives are richly diverse and yet each records joy and sorrow, success and loss, abundance and hardship, and usually an unextinguishable sense of hope. Perchance we could think more often of the portrait of America we paint together instead of whether the colors of our personal narrative fall more blue or more red or even more green.